Keeping carefully out of sight behind her, I saw her stop at last beside a hut which leaned against the side of the hill, and go in at its door. I stole up quietly. There were no windows in the hut, but I thought I might be able to see inside through the roof, which was only a thatch of straw. I could easily reach it from the side of the hill. In a moment I was lying on the roof, and digging away the straw with my fingers.
I worked slowly and noiselessly, and after a time made a hole through which I could look down into the hut. It was dark below, but I could see the old woman stooping down over an opening in the floor, from which she was just raising a trapdoor. She stepped down into the opening and closed the door over her head.
I lost no time in making a hole in the thatch big enough to admit my body; and when I had done so I dropped to the floor, and stood beside the trapdoor. I raised it cautiously and peered down. All was dark below, but I could make out a flight of stone steps. I went down without a sound.
He Follows the Ragpicker Down Into the Dark
At the bottom I got down on my hands and knees and crawled along, touching the side of a wall at my right. The wall ended abruptly, and feeling the ground before me I found that I was on the edge of open space, and I could hear the rushing of water far below. My hand touched the top of a ladder, and I went down it carefully; but after a moment my foot dangled in space, and I nearly fell off; the ladder stopped short, and I clung on desperately. I then climbed to the top again and crawled along toward my left, feeling the edge with my hand until I shortly touched the top of another ladder; and down this ladder, fastened securely against the wall, I went more cautiously than before.
The ladder was long, but I finally found myself on solid ground. Following the wall to the left, I passed around a corner, and as I did so I saw a light.
It was a square patch of light, like the light of a small window, afar off in the darkness. I went down on my hands and knees again and crawled toward it. The ground was unbroken here, and I could now scarcely hear the sound of water. I stopped at last directly beneath the light, and touched a wall. I felt with my left hand what seemed to be a closed door, and I got up slowly on my feet. I was looking into a lighted room through a small square window, without glass, and crossed with iron bars.
A lamp was burning brightly in a bracket on a wall of the room. On the earthen floor, near the center, the old Ragpicker was kneeling before a brazier containing a brisk fire, over which hung an iron pot. Her bag lay on the floor beside her, flat and limp; it was evidently empty.
She Stirs a Steaming Mixture with Her Long Hooked Forefinger
As I watched her, she arose from her knees and went to a door at the rear, and made sure that it was closed tight. She then went to a great heap of rubbish which was piled in one corner, and scratching with her poker amongst the rags, bones, and old iron there, picked out carefully a handful of bones, examining each one minutely. She then took from a shelf a large bottle of some dark liquid, and with this and the bones she returned to the fire. She poured the liquid into the iron pot and dropped in the bones, one by one; and as she did so I observed a thing which I had not discerned before, that what I had thought was a poker held in her hand was in fact a long, black, stiff forefinger, hooked at the end. There was no doubt about it; it was the first finger of her right hand, as stiff as an iron rod, and about a foot and a half long. She stuck it into the steaming pot and stirred the mixture with it, muttering to herself words which I could not understand.